Words and Rules: The Ingredients Of LanguageBasic Books, 14 juil. 2015 - 384 pages An "excellent work of popular science" (New Republic) by a New York Times-bestselling author that unites history and science to reveal how the mind does language In Words and Rules, Steven Pinker explores profound mysteries of language by picking a deceptively simple phenomenon -- regular and irregular verbs -- and examining it from every angle. With humor and verve, he covers an astonishing array of topics in the sciences and humanities, from the history of languages to how to simulate languages on computers to major ideas in the history of Western philosophy. Through it all, Pinker presents a single, powerful idea: that language comprises a mental dictionary of memorized words and a mental grammar of creative rules. The idea extends beyond language and offers insight into the very nature of the human mind. This is a sparkling, eye-opening, and utterly original book by one of the world's leading cognitive scientists. |
Table des matières
| 1 | |
Dissection by Linguistics | 21 |
Broken Telephone | 47 |
In Single Combat | 83 |
Word Nerds | 121 |
Of Mice and Men | 147 |
Kids Say the Darnedest Things | 189 |
The Horrors of the German Language | 211 |
Digital Mind in an Analog World | 269 |
Glossary | 289 |
Notes | 297 |
| 313 | |
| 335 | |
About the Author | 2 |
About the Book | 6 |
Suggested Reading | 19 |
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Expressions et termes fréquents
Ablaut adults apply bahuvrihi Bil Keane Boston Globe brain Bybee called chapter child Clahsen combinatorial common compounds connectionism connectionist consonants English language English speakers entry errors example explain frequency German grammar guage headless hear human impaired inflection input irregular forms irregular nouns irregular patterns irregular verbs kind language lexical linguists lobe look Marcus Marslen-Wilson meaning mental dictionary mice mind Modern English morphemes morphology mouse neural onomatopoeia output overgeneralize participle past past-tense forms patients pattern associator memory percent phonemes phonology phrase Pinker & Prince predicted prefixes pronounced pronunciation psychology regular and irregular regular inflection regular past-tense forms regular plurals regular suffix retrieve root sentences similar singed Specific Language Impairment speech spelling stored suffix syntax things tion Ullman verb stem Vowel Shift walk Wickelphones Williams syndrome words and rules words-and-rules theory